Keanu Reeves holds the distinction of being the star of both one of the highest grossing films of all time, The Matrix, and the star of one the biggest box office bombs of all time, 47 Ronin. But as you probably know, Hollywood executives can be just as fickle as ticket buyers at the box office. In a candid interview with IndieWire, Reeves speaks about his frustration with Hollywood while trying to balance his multiplex career with art house indie films.
Reeves points out that despite his Matrix success, Hollywood hasn’t been calling him in the last decade. He says, “The last studio movie I did was 47 Ronin, but before that it had been a long time — probably The Day the Earth Stood Still. So I haven’t been getting many offers from the studios.”
When asked if he is okay with that, Reeves responds, “No, it sucks, but it’s just the way it is. You can have positive and negative experiences, but what I like about studios are the resources and the worlds that they can create. Obviously, a lot of good filmmakers work on studio movies. Even when I was working on studio movies more often, I was always doing independent movies. So for me, that was just not happening, but I want to keep going, making things, and telling stories. I want to be able to do that — to be an actor, a director, to produce, you know? If we’re going to do a delineation between studio and independent [films], I was always hoping to do both.”
Whether that means Reeves will jump at the chance of doing the often-rumored Speed 3 in order to work with Hollywood again is anyone’s guess.
